Fine Arts Archives | Research & Innovation

The Art Gallery of 91��ɫ to present Jess Dobkin's 'Wetrospective' exhibition

ls1207 — Mon, 30 Aug 2021 18:13:55 +0000

The Art Gallery of 91��ɫ (AGYU) will reopen its doors this next month with the first-ever retrospective exhibition of Toronto’s performance art matriarch Jess Dobkin, curated by former AGYU director/curator Emelie Chhangur (now at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Kingston, Ont.).

The exhibition, titled��Wetrospective, will run from��Sept. 2 to 26, with an opening party on Friday, Sept. 10 from 7 to 10 p.m. A signed and numbered artist multiple will be given to the first 200 visitors to the gallery.

Jess Dobkin’s��Mirror Ball��performance, 2008

"I’ve been thinking a lot about how to undo, redo, reimagine, represent, activate, upcycle the archive," says Dobkin. "For my purposes I’m not interested in the archive as presentation of historical documents. I am interested in how it can be performed. How it can be in conversation with the living present and also speak to the future."

Dobkin has been a working artist, curator, community activist, mentor and teacher for more than 25 years, creating and producing intimate solo theatre performances, large-scale public happenings, socially engaged interventions, and performance art workshops and lectures. With Wetrospective, Dobkin welcomes the public into 25 years of her playful and provocative practice with animated “litrine vitrines” (portable toilets) and a custom-designed augmented reality app.

“Dobkin upcycles her own archive of past performances in ways that constitute her concept of ‘bendy-time,’” says Chhangur. “This exhibition demands of archives what we expect from performance: the live encounter of experience in a ritual of transformation.”

The exhibition's Collective Effervescence Opening Party will feature an outdoor celebration with DJ Cozmic Cat, Nik Red, Sasha Van Bon Bon and John Caffery spinning archives of Toronto’s favourite parties, plus Jewish Performance Food Truck with Guillermina Buzio and Bar Bacan.

Ancillary events and activations

Jess Dobkin’s Wetrospective includes the following constellation of talks, tours and engagements featuring seminal cultural critic Ann Cvetkovich; artist and scholar Jehan L. Roberson; artist and archivist Joyce LeeAnn; and 91��ɫ Professor Laura Levin, associate dean of research in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD):

You’re Welcome Wetro Tour with Emelie Chhangur and Jess Dobkin: Thursday, Sept. 9 at 3 p.m. at the AGYU.
Portals, Potions and Archives with Jehan Roberson: Saturday, Sept. 18 at 3 p.m. at the AGYU (and livestream).
The Live Encounter Performative Gallery Tour with Laura Levin: Monday, Sept. 20 at 3 p.m. at the AGYU.
Archival Alchemy with Joyce LeeAnn (in collaboration with the FADO Performance Art Centre): Tuesday, Sept. 21 at 7 p.m. at 401 Richmond Street West, Toronto (and livestream).
Hemispheric Encounters with Performance Art Archivists – Roundtable Discussion: Thursday, Sept. 23, 3 to 4 p.m. via livestream.
All the Feels with Ann Cvetkovich: Friday, Sept. 24 at 3 p.m. at the AGYU (and livestream).

Wetrospective was produced by the AGYU with the support of Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology at 91��ɫ and the AMPD Makerspace, along with the collaborative help of affiliated computational arts students who assisted in the conceptualization and development of the Wetrospective app.

For this exhibition, the AGYU will be open seven days a week from 12 to 5 p.m., with extended hours until 7 p.m. on Wednesdays. Pre-registration will be required to attend the exhibition and related events, and AGYU visitors will need to pre-screen before coming to 91��ɫ's Keele Campus. For more information and to register, visit . For accessibility and accommodation assistance, email agyu@yorku.ca.

Note: This exhibition and related events contain mature content.

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The show must go on: How 91��ɫ theatre students helped adapt a local high-school musical for pandemic times

ls1207 — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 18:27:56 +0000

A year-end musical theatre production can be as important to the heart and soul of a high school as its season-opening football game or senior prom. So when the COVID-19 pandemic hit last year and began robbing students of some of their most formative experiences, drama educators scrambled to keep the curtains from closing.

Marlis Schweitzer

Karen O'Meara, department head of dramatic arts at Richmond Green Secondary School in Richmond Hill, Ont., was one such teacher. Determined to forge ahead with her combined Grade 11 and 12 musical theatre production, she reached out to��, professor and Chair of the Department of Theatre in 91��ɫ’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design, whom she had been collaborating with on workshops for drama teachers. They both decided that this was the perfect opportunity to combine forces in a new way.

“At the time,” explains O’Meara, “I was putting on a production, which I then had to translate into an online production. What ended up resulting from that conversation was a number of 91��ɫ theatre students saying, ‘Hey, we don’t have anything to do. It’s the pandemic and everything is locked down; we would love to help with your show.’ So those were the initial seeds of this project.”

Karen O'Meara

With the help of those enthusiastic student volunteers, Richmond Green presented its first online production in spring 2020 – and it was a huge success. Heading into the next pandemic-impacted school year, Schweitzer decided to take the project one step further by officially incorporating it into 91��ɫ’s theatre curriculum as a for-credit experiential education offering called the Independent Production Practicum.

The course kicked off in January of this year and the seven enrolled students – Isabella Liscio, Megan Keatings, Hannah Smith, Rachel D’Arpino, Dave Harack, Laura Nigro and Joshua Kilimnik – jumped right into planning mode, joining O’Meara for a two-hour meeting on Zoom every Monday night. When the high-school semester began the following month, the 91��ɫ students took the high schoolers through a series of theatre workshops, which O’Meara says “set the bar high for the students and gave them a fantastic foundation to continue with creative exploration.”

Through breakout rooms on their weekly Zoom calls, the 91��ɫ students went on to provide mentorship in areas where they had passion and interest. There were rooms for choreography, vocals, directing, producing and script-writing, to name a few. They attended the high-school classes whenever they could, and provided leadership within the classroom setting – running scenes and coaching students on various aspects of the show. Their contributions did not go unnoticed.

Isabella Liscio

“The 91��ɫ students were outstanding,” says O’Meara. “They had so much genuine enthusiasm for what our students were doing. They were always willing to offer their expertise, make suggestions and provide great feedback.”

One of the 91��ɫ theatre students, Liscio, who just finished her third year specializing in performance creation and research, started working with O’Meara in May 2020 as a volunteer to get classroom hours for her teachers college application. She has now helped Richmond Green put on three productions. “This experience has meant so much,” she says. “I want to be a drama teacher and I didn’t have much experience working with high-school students before. I got to learn and explore with them what this genre of online theatre is and work with them in the areas of acting, directing, marketing and production.”

Another third-year student, D’Arpino, who is majoring in performing arts and concurrent education, originally applied for the course thinking it was a volunteer opportunity that would serve her well as she pursues a future as a high-school drama teacher. She was thrilled to discover that it had become a for-credit course and she hopes to continue her involvement with the school. “Karen wants our opinion, asks us to help and gets everyone involved,” she says. “The kids are so immersed in everything, learning it all and putting it together from scratch. It has been such an amazing opportunity to give input and watch the whole experience come to life.”

Rachel D'Arpino

Like the others, Harack, who will be heading into his third year of 91��ɫ’s theatre production program in the fall, plans to attend teachers college post-graduation. He knows this experience with Richmond Green will help him thrive in that setting and in the industry at large. “Seeing the students take the lead has been really awesome,” he says. “To see them progress from an idea to filming scenes and then editing, it was a really rewarding experience.”

Putting on a large-scale production during pandemic times certainly had its challenges, though, requiring the students to adapt on the fly to the ever-changing restrictions. “We knew we were only going to get a very short time together in person and we had to take advantage of every minute,” says O’Meara. “Our biggest learning was that if you want to produce work virtually, you have to be very organized, have a solid plan and be flexible to change.”

And change they did. The 28-person high-school class was expecting to have two in-person blocks for filming, but when everything was shut down after the first block, they had to go back to the drawing board and rewrite the script accordingly. “But because we had such a good plan at the start and a very good scene-by-scene vision, that really helped guide us when we had to make a change,” says O’Meara.

Student-designed promotional poster for the "Out of Sync" production

The end result was "Out of Sync," a completely student-written musical that went live on the evening of June 23 via Zoom, of course. The show was about four high schools – one private, one public, one arts-focused and one sports-focused – competing against each other in a lip-sync battle. As the rival schools went from cut-throat saboteurs to considerate allies, the show left its audience with the feel-good takeaway that music has the power to unite people from all walks of life.

Understandably, signs of the pandemic were everywhere in the production – students in masks, physical distancing, scenes filmed in students’ homes, in parks, on Zoom and some spliced together to make it appear that the cast was in the same place when in reality they were not. And perhaps that was part of the show’s charm, serving as a sort of time capsule for the strange and surreal year that was.

No one yet knows what the next school year has in store, but one thing is certain: the educational experience gained from putting on this production in such turbulent times will have a lasting impact for all involved.

“I’m delighted that our students have had such an exciting opportunity to work closely with Ms. O’Meara and the students at Richmond Green on the development of a new musical,” says Schweitzer. “Through this collaboration, they’ve developed leadership and teaching skills that will enhance their careers, whether they decide to go on to become high-school drama teachers themselves or pursue other creative avenues. I look forward to seeing this kind of partnership grow in the future.”

By Lindsay MacAdam, communications officer,��۹󾱱��

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Rare artifacts find their way home to the Philippines thanks to a 91��ɫ professor

ls1207 — Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:41:40 +0000

A museum in the northern Philippines has received a treasure trove of local artifacts, all thanks to a connection made during the organized by 91��ɫ and partners in January 2021.

Patrick Alcedo

, associate professor of dance in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD), was one of the conference speakers. He gave a presentation about using dance as a pedagogical tool. Alcedo is a dancer, dance ethnographer and documentary filmmaker who specializes in the folk dances of the Philippines.

In the audience for was Faye Snodgress, an American education consultant and granddaughter of a man who taught English in the northern Philippines in the late 1800s.

Following the conference, Snodgress wrote to Alcedo to explain her family connection to the Philippines. She sent along photos of some cultural artifacts that her grandfather had brought home as mementos of his stay in the rural Philippines. Snodgress expressed a desire to donate them to a museum or an appreciative audience. She asked Alcedo if he had any ideas about a good home or any connections to someone who could assist her with the donation.

This embroidered bag is among the artifacts sent to the Museo Kordilyera. Photograph courtesy of Patrick Alcedo

Alcedo, who hails from the central Philippines, immediately thought of a colleague at OCAD University, Lynne B. Milgram, who conducts research in the northern part of the Philippines. He got in touch with Milgram and she told him that a new museum, the , had opened in 2019 at the University of the Philippines. Milgram contacted the director of Museo Kordilyera and received an enthusiastic response: the museum would be delighted to add the artifacts to its collection.

Included in the artifacts are two rare carved spoons and a vessel. Photograph courtesy of Patrick Alcedo

“The artifacts are amazing,” said Alcedo. “There are wooden spoons with carvings of humans on the handle, for example, and a very rare bag that is used in a particular Philippine dance. Material objects are inextricably linked with Philippine dance; they are used as props. I used a similar bag when I was a dancer. These traditions still exist. The dance movements are specific, but they alone can’t signify the culture; the dances are so object-driven.”

The artifacts are now in Baguio, the city that houses the Museo Kordilyera.

Alcedo, who often travels to the area to conduct research on regional dances, is planning a visit to the collection once it is safe to travel again.

“Imagine, these artifacts came to North America 120 years ago,” he said. “It is such a generous thing to do to return them to a place where they will be treasured.

“In addition, it is fitting that these artifacts are being returned home during the Philippines’ quincentennial year so that the entire country can enjoy them,” added Alcedo, who was named by the Philippine Consulate as a recipient of a 2021 Quincentennial Award.

By Elaine Smith, special contributor

Courtesy of YFile.

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Like mother, like son: Introducing the first mother-son MFA screenwriting graduates in 91��ɫ history

ls1207 — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 17:28:06 +0000

As many 91��ɫ graduates geared up for the final hurrah of their academic careers this month, one soon-to-be grad who won’t don her cap and gown until fall breathed a big sigh of relief, having just defended her four-years-in-the-making master’s thesis.��

Nicole Alexander��has now all but convocated with her master of fine arts (MFA) in screenwriting from 91��ɫ’s Department of Cinema & Media Arts. She follows rather untraditionally in the footsteps of her eldest son,��Morgan Fics, who accepted the very same degree five years ago – making them the first mother-son MFA screenwriting graduates in 91��ɫ history. And the story of how they got here – together – is definitely one worth telling.

Morgan Fics (left) and Nicole Alexander (right)

The son

Growing up in Winnipeg, Fics wanted to be a writer for as long as he can remember, penning short stories every chance he got and imagining his bright future as a novelist. After high school, he took some time off to travel and write before realizing that he should pursue post-secondary education to help improve his craft. He soon enrolled at the University of Winnipeg, where his interests shifted from English literature to film after a professor pointed out that his work was better suited to scripts than prose. And after completing his first screenwriting course, he knew it was a perfect fit.

The poster for Morgan Fics's 2018 short film��Tick Tock

Encouragement from a trusted mentor led Fics to then decide to apply for a master’s program next. 91��ɫ’s was the only graduate screenwriting program in the country at the time, so he applied and was thrilled to be accepted.

“I remember the day they called me,” he says. “I was at work and I basically broke down crying in the middle of this tech support call centre I was working at. It was very, very exciting.”

Fics happened to know three people from Winnipeg who were going through 91��ɫ’s small but mighty graduate film program at the same time, in different streams. “And because of that, I had a really strong connection between all three aspects of the department,” he explains, “so I spent a lot of time on set, I got to do a lot of producing and a lot of story editing.”

His many fond memories from 91��ɫ centre around the mentorship and collaboration among his fellow students, spending a lot of time workshopping and getting to know each other really well. He is still in contact with some of them today.

Since graduating in 2016, Fics has been busy. He has made several short films, the most recent of which, Tick Tock (2018), qualified for both the Canadian Screen Awards and the Academy Awards, and won best drama at the Toronto Shorts International Film Festival and an award of excellence at Canada Shorts. Finding the Restorative Narrative (2015), which he worked on with another 91��ɫ MFA grad, is part of the late 91��ɫ Professor Amnon Buchbinder’s interactive website . And a new screenplay that he cowrote and hopes to co-direct is currently being shopped around to North American production companies.

Fics has also been exploring his interest in teaching by working as a teaching assistant for the Biology of Story course at 91��ɫ for several years and instructing a screenwriting course in the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies. “I think teaching is one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever gotten to do with my life,” he says, “and I think that’s a lot of influence from my mom, for sure.”

Looking ahead, Fics hopes to have a varied career that includes making independent Canadian feature films and teaching part-time, while doing some script-doctoring and story editing on the side. “I basically want to do a million things at once so I’m always fresh for whatever is going on,” he says with a laugh.

The mother

Alexander, who earned her bachelor of education from the University of Manitoba and graduated from Chicago's Second City sketch comedy writing program, kept her passion for writing mostly on the back burner as she raised her young family and worked as a teacher. But once her three kids reached their teenage years, she decided to take a crack at her first film script, something she had always dreamt of doing. She submitted that debut screenplay, The Suicide Club, to the WFF Praxis Screenwriters Lab – 21 years ago now – and, to her surprise, it was selected. But with a full-time job and three kids at home, there still wasn’t much time for her to pursue writing in any significant way. However, with her interest piqued, she went on to complete two more feature scripts in her stolen moments, plus a funny book on internet dating called Cyber Love Muse.

When all three of Alexander’s adult children left Winnipeg for graduate programs, she decided to head overseas to teach. She spent two years in Thailand and a year in South Korea, and it was then, when she was really missing her family and not knowing where to settle next, that Fics encouraged her to apply for the MFA in screenwriting at 91��ɫ. She hadn’t previously considered it, but she liked the idea.

“I think I needed a break from teaching and I’ve always wanted to become a better writer. I still do,” she says. “And I was shocked they let me in but they did.”

She lived on campus for two years and loved every minute of it. “Because I had my kids so young, living on campus was just so much fun,” she says. “I was really quiet and I had a cat, so I wasn’t like a usual college student, but I really appreciated the experience. Just having the time to explore the writing was such a privilege.”

The most memorable part of the program for Alexander was the short film she created, as it was her first time experimenting with other aspects of filmmaking outside of writing. “I got to write, direct and shoot, and that was an absolutely amazing experience,” she recalls.

After a difficult final year spent finishing her thesis, returning to teaching and moving back to Winnipeg to take care of her elderly father, who recently passed, Alexander is now beginning to feel like she can start to enjoy the fruits of her labour. “Now I can say that I have my MFA from 91��ɫ in screenwriting,” she says excitedly. “I’m relieved. There’s a real jubilance underneath that is starting to come out.”

She will be moving back to Ontario this summer, and although she’ll still be teaching, Alexander hopes to spend the next year finishing up the two scripts she has on the go and trying to do something with her thesis script, which she has already submitted to some competitions. “My goal is to segue from teaching to writing full-time, if that’s possible,” says Alexander. “I’m aiming for a new career – why not, right?”

Nicole Alexander (left) and Morgan Fics (right)

A family affair

Top of mind for both mother and son is to work on a project together now that Alexander is finished her MFA and finally able to dedicate her attention to something other than her thesis. “We’ve still got some time before the school year kicks off and I have a feeling that we’ll probably pound out a script ASAP,” says Fics assuredly.

But this won’t be the first time this mother-son duo collaborates on work. The pair has a long history of working together – while Fics completed his MFA studies, and while Alexander went through hers.

“When I would write a script, I would send it to my mom and she would read it and help with the editing,” explains Fics. “It was back and forth like this, with her stuff too. I actually edited her short film, the one that she shot at 91��ɫ. We’ve been working together for 15 years.”

Their tight-knit bond became especially important as they both navigated through some very heavy and interconnected material for their master’s theses. “We got really lucky to have each other during both of our journeys,” says Fics, “especially because we both did very personal thesis topics that centred around one particular individual from our lives, my father and my mom’s ex,” who passed away during the first year of Alexander’s MFA.

“It was very healing, writing that script,” Fics says. “I honestly don’t think I could have done it without my mom. It was a long process of, I guess I would call it grieving, of trying to move through the story of my relationship with my father and how that ended up playing out within the script. And something I always wished is that he could have read it.”

“It was quite the journey,” Alexander agrees. “I call it my personal therapy.”

By Lindsay MacAdam, communications officer, Communications & Public Affairs, 91��ɫ

Courtesy of YFile.

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Professor Stephanie Martin to receive the AMPD Research Award

muellerm — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 08:00:00 +0000

An important story of Canadian history and tragedy that was retold through an opera written by Stephanie Martin, associate professor of music at 91��ɫ’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design (AMPD), will be the subject of a special lecture on March 11 at 91��ɫ.

Stephanie Martin

The presentation is the marquee event in a special celebration honouring Martin with the third annual AMPD Research Award.

The AMPD Research Award Reception & Talk will take place from 2:30 to 5 p.m. in room 237, Accolade East Building on the Keele Campus. (This event is by invitation only.)

"Stephanie Martin has distinguished herself as a prominent composer, choral conductor, and scholar who is recognized through performances of her compositions across Canada and internationally," says Professor Louise Wrazen, chair of the Music Department. "The AMPD Research Award is a wonderful way of acknowledging these achievements, as well as her contributions to 91��ɫ and to the Department of Music."

The lecture will focus Llandovery Castle, an opera created by Martin to mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the eponymous hospital ship during the First World War. Martin's original opera took a historical tragedy and made it live for current audiences. Llandovery Castle, which premiered June 26 and 27, 2019 in Toronto, tells the story of the journey of the Canadian hospital ship HMHS Llandovery Castle that was torpedoed in the North Atlantic Ocean in June 1918. The story focuses on 14 nurses from across Canada who served in harrowing circumstances around the First World War. The opera features music written by Martin, libretto by Paul Ciufo and was staged at the Calvin Presbyterian Church in Toronto.

Martin’s interest in the story began in 2015, when during a rehearsal for another project she noticed a dedication plaque for a Llandovery Castle nurse on the wall of Calvin Presbyterian Church.��The music of opera, scored for a sonorous classical chamber orchestra and nine singers, has been described as "a modern flirtation between baroque, classical, traditional and popular genres." Martin describes this operatic style as "21st century bel canto," focused on the narrative and expressive power of the human voice.

HMHS Landovery Castle. Image: Wikimedia Commons

The creation of the opera is part of an illustrious career in classical music. "Professor Martin’s compositions, along with her edition of Parry’s oratorio Judith, are examples of how composition can be seen as research creation and are firmly rooted in her exemplary career as a choral conductor," said her colleague Professor Dorothy de Val in her nomination letter.

"From the research point of view, Martin brings her own compositional voice to traditional genres such as oratorio, cantata, mass and motet to frame her original ideas, and above all makes her works accessible to performers and a large audience," added de Val.

Martin's current compositions include an oratorio,��, an opera , a Requiem mass ��premiered in San Diego (Ruben Valenzuela, conductor) and��premiered at St. John Cantius parish in Chicago (Fr Scott Haynes, conductor). Her choral symphony��premièred at Wilfrid Laurier University (Lee Willingham, conductor), celebrating the 40th anniversary of the WLU Faculty of Music. (Listen on��).

To learn more, read the September 2019 Q-and-A with Martin, published in "Brainstorm" a special issue of YFile. The article is available at .

Courtesy of YFile.

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Empowering the powerless: Q&A with acclaimed filmmaker Patrick Alcedo

muellerm — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 08:00:00 +0000

With two well-received documentaries under his belt, Professor Patrick Alcedo has proven his ability to tell an evocative and unforgettable story. He sits down with Brainstorm to talk about his documentaries, which showcase Filipino culture, empower the underprivileged and, in his own words, “grip the heart.”

After choreographing a Filipino dance extravaganza at 91��ɫ as part of the last spring, Professor Patrick Alcedo was anxiously watching his dancers perform from the front row, off to the side. And then he joined in on the final number. The passion and skill of this postcolonial scholar, dance artist and award-winning filmmaker truly radiates.

This translates into film. Alcedo, in 91��ɫ’s University’s School of the Arts, Media Performance & Design (AMPD) for more than a decade, certainly knows how to tell a story that captivates audiences through unvarnished beauty and powerful messages.

Two documentaries – A Piece of Paradise (2017) and Dancing Manilenyos (2019) – have put him on the map of filmmakers to watch. The more recent film earned an Award of Recognition from the Hollywood International Independent Documentary Awards and was selected to be in competition at the 2019 Diversity in Cannes Short Film Showcase during the Cannes Film Festival.

Alcedo sits down with Brainstorm to discuss what inspires his work, what he hopes to convey through his documentaries and what’s next for this accomplished scholar.

Q: What drives you to find and tell these stories?

A: I have always been fascinated with the power of film. Way back, as a young faculty member at the University of the Philippines, I would watch films by directors like Pedro Almodovar, Lino Brocka and Zhang Yimou. As much as their films are fictional, they indicated to me the immediate impact of films on their viewers.

Poster for Dancing Manilenyos

Such immediacy drew me to go into documentary films, a genre that fits my training in dance ethnography like a glove.

Since I am an ethnographer, I conduct fieldwork. When I find stories that speak to larger realities, I do not hesitate to reorganize my life to make documentary films around these subjects.

Q: Please describe the filmmaking process.

A: Since my primary method of research is fieldwork, I live in communities where I conduct research. It is amazing how many inspiring and inspired stories I encounter through that living.

I start conceptualizing my documentary films in the field. The first step is pre-production, where I do quite a few on-camera interviews with individuals who I envision will play key roles in the film.

The second step is production, which could take three to four years of intermittent filming. Here, I work closely with a videographer who has a keen understanding of ethnographic work. With me doing the audio or, at times, the second camera, together we patiently follow the lives of film “subjects” or cast members. Establishing rapport is key for me. There are times when I just hang out with them – a “deep hanging out” in an anthropological sense.

The final step is post-production, where I work closely with an editor to piece the story together. I do the subtitling myself.

Scenes from Dancing Manilenyos

Q: Your movies shine a light on Filipino culture but also contain universal themes. What are you trying to say to audiences?

A: I have always been drawn to issues around marginality. Thus, my films tend to focus on groups of people who are underprivileged as a result of class disparity, ethnocentrism, and myopic understanding of the complexity of gender formation and choices.

As a scholar, dance artist and filmmaker who has experienced discrimination first-hand, I purposely employ my works to empower the powerless – to redress unfair practices and rectify essentialized notions of what it means to be human.

I am a postcolonial scholar, someone who was born and raised in the Philippines – a country that was formerly within the domains of the Spanish and American empires. And thus, the ability of people to take ownership of, to localize, foreign elements introduced or forced upon them is running through my works.

What I am trying to say in my films is this: if one zooms into people’s everyday lives and their attendant cultural dance practices, one can spot many instances of agency – that is, the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. These are the moments about which I care the most.

A poster for A Piece of Paradise

Q: Why do you think your films resonate so profoundly with audiences?

A: I think my films speak to universal issues that matter regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, class background etc.

In A Piece of Paradise and Dancing Manilenyos, I, respectively, tackle the topics of emotional labour among Filipino caregivers in Toronto and of the incredible potential of dance to fight poverty and to choreograph against elitism. These themes resonate with viewers because they are moved by stories that grip the heart, striking chords of emotion and empathy.

Q: How has 91��ɫ supported your work?

A: If not for 91��ɫ, I truly believe it would not have been possible for me to do my documentary films. The writing of my grants was carefully vetted by highly competent research officers. As a member of the 91��ɫ Centre for Asian Research, I received a Publication Fund to finish the post-production of Dancing Manilenyos. AMPD and the Department of Cinema & Media Arts sponsored the free use of colour correction and sound design suites. My own Department of Dance has always supported my films and created a conducive environment for filmmaking.

Q: What’s next for you?

Scenes from A Piece of Paradise

A: I am excited and deeply honoured that I have, again, received a grant from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council.

For the next five years, I will be conducting research on Philippine dance practices in Manila and across Canada. Propelled by the positive outcome of Dancing Manilenyos, I have decided to turn it into a feature-length documentary.

To date, I have already started working on this new film and the transnational research project. I hope that in the next couple of years my new film will have its world premiere somewhere and that my research project will have been articulated in a series of print publications.

To learn more about Alcedo, visit his To see the trailer for Dancing Manilenyos, go . To see the trailer for A Piece of Paradise, go.

To learn more about Research & Innovation at 91��ɫ, follow us at ; watch our new , which profiles current research strengths and areas of opportunity such as artificial intelligence and Indigenous futurities; and see the for a glimpse of the year’s successes.

By Megan Mueller, senior manager, research communications, Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, 91��ɫ, muellerm@yorku.ca

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Provocative new sculptures speak to the power and connectivity of public art

muellerm — Fri, 05 Apr 2019 08:00:00 +0000

Sculptor Brandon Vickerd, AMPD professor, has created large public art pieces in three major cities across Canada, all completed by 2019. Community consultations, workshops and storytelling opportunities have informed his engaging and conceptually rigorous pieces.

Brandon Vickerd

91��ɫ Professor Brandon Vickerd, a sculptor in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD), continues to make his mark on the Canadian landscape – both literally and figuratively. Three compelling new public art pieces prove this point: Dwell, installed in Ottawa in 2018; Wolfe and the Sparrows, slated for next month in Calgary; and The Passenger, which will be installed in Waterloo, Ont., in September.

All three commissioned works draw viewers in with highly enigmatic content gleaned from Vickerd’s immersion in the various communities. More than anything, his work is a profound and poetic statement about our connectedness and our relationship to history.

“My sculptures straddle the line between high and low culture and act as catalysts for critical thought. I want to provoke the viewer into questioning the dominant myth of progress ingrained in Western world views,” he explains.

Dwell – a quintessential community engagement project

Dwell, part of the Imagined Monuments public artwork project for Greenbank Road, was commissioned by the City of Ottawa, designed in 2017, then created and installed in 2018.

Preliminary rendering of Dwell (left) and photos of installed sculpture

In this piece, Vickerd wanted to explore the narrative of and social cohesion in Barrhaven, a rapidly growing neighbourhood in southwest Ottawa. He sought to build a structure that assigned meaning to its history and existence. To do this, he spent five months in the community as an artist-in-residence and conducted numerous consultations, including workshops at the local library and opportunities where seniors could share stories about local history. In fact, Vickerd received more than 30 stories from the community, and held more than 20 in-person interviews and five telephone interviews with prominent Barrhaven residents.

Old Barnett farmhouse, inspiration for Dwell

A tribute to Barrhaven’s history, Dwell is a steel representation of the 1818 Barnett farmhouse that was destroyed to make room for suburban growth. It stands 40 feet above the ground, like a sentinel, visible from great distances. It transforms the ordinary form of an old house into something extraordinary, marking both the site and a moment in time; it is a striking metaphor for our relationship with history.

This piece is grand but entirely accessible. “Dwell is about connecting to people, their sense of place and their capacity to change,”��Vickerd explains. “High in the sky above the community, it asserts the true core of Barrhaven: the notion of home.”

Wolfe and the Sparrows compels viewers to revisit Canada’s colonial past

Next month, Wolfe and the Sparrows, commissioned by the City of Calgary, will be installed as part of the 12th Street S. E. Bridge Public Art Project. It is based on a statue of James Wolfe, a British Army officer known for his 1759 victory over the French at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in Quebec.

At a distance, this bronze piece will look like a standard wartime or political monument set in a high-traffic location in a park on a pedestal. But upon closer inspection, viewers will see that a flock of sparrows dramatically erupts from the collar of the figure.

Wolfe and the Sparrows: preliminary drawings and final sculpture

Why sparrows? “Turns out, house sparrows are an invasive species in North America,”��Vickerd explains. “They were brought to Brooklyn��in the 1800s by a British bird enthusiast. So sparrows made sense in the context of colonial discourse. When the sculpture is installed, the birds will be flying in the direction of England.”

Given that traditional statues of white, European men reinforce the mythology of colonialism, this political work turns history on its head and invites audiences into a discussion about authority, monuments and Canada’s colonial past. “This sculpture uses the aesthetic language of traditional statuary to actively subvert and destabilize the authority of the dominant culture’s public monuments,” Vickerd explains.

This piece perfectly exemplifies how contemporary society is critically assessing these so-called heroes – the heated debate over John A. Macdonald statues is a prime example. Vickerd believes the timing is right. “Given our nation’s 150th��anniversary and the recent findings of the Indian Residential School Truth & Reconciliation Committee, this is an ideal time to question the role of the monument in narratives about our colonial past,” he says.

Public consultation was again embedded in Vickerd’s process. He engaged in conversations with area citizens through workshops and other research processes, and gleaned an idea of the essential components to the piece – primarily, the relationship between the site and First Nations people, and the idea that the artwork should address a sense of history and challenge audiences by being conceptually rigorous.

Humorous and intriguing, The Passenger invites reflection of our relationship to nature

The Passenger, commissioned by the City of Waterloo for the ION Rapid Transit Public Art Project, will be installed in September.

The Passenger: initial concept far left, followed by close-ups flanking finished sculpture

Situated on a pedestrian walkway at the R+T Park ION Station transit stop, at first glance this bronze sculpture will look like an average commuter on his daily trek to the office. But on closer inspection, audiences will realize that the piece is a curious compilation of lifelike animals (based on taxidermy models) – squirrels, a raccoon, an owl, a turtle, a duck and a salamander – that are bursting out of the shell of a man.

This piece inspires reflection on our relationship with nature in a witty and captivating fashion. “Shifting from normal to surreal, the work has an uneasy quality,”��Vickerd explains. “It shows the extraordinary possibilities beneath the mundane we take for granted.”

Again, community consultation was key. In selecting which animals to feature, Vickerd reached out to local experts ranging from those in the University of Waterloo’s Ecology Lab to the local chapter of Ducks Unlimited. He also spent hours observing commuters to ensure that the attire was spot on: dress shoes, slacks, a button-up shirt (no tie) and a light jacket.

Vickerd’s new commissioned pieces – each challenging in their own way – make a strong statement on the power and connectivity of public art.

To watch a video about Dwell, see . To learn more about Vickerd, visit his or his .

To learn more about Research & Innovation at 91��ɫ, follow us at , watch the and see the .

By Megan Mueller, senior manager, research communications, Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, 91��ɫ, muellerm@yorku.ca

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'XL Outer Worlds' project gears up for the debut of five exceptional films

muellerm — Fri, 01 Mar 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Five filmmakers are working feverishly this spring to contribute to an extravaganza debuting next month. Led by 91��ɫ’s Janine Marchessault, together with the grandson of the man who invented IMAX, the 'XL Outer Worlds' project promises to be an unforgettable, larger-than-life experience.

Janine Marchessault

Next month will bear witness to the debut of a unique and compelling project led by cinema and media arts Professor Janine Marchessault. She��joined forces with True Frame Productions’ Christian Kroitor��(grandson of IMAX inventor Roman Kroitor) to produce XL Outer Worlds.

“Five leading Canadian media artists will create the new films in a cinematic genre typical of IMAX films: the larger-than-life landscape that forms an outer world,” Marchessault said. “This is a highly collaborative project from the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design, funded by the Canada Council (for the Arts). It brings together this Faculty at 91��ɫ, the Public Access Collective, Concordia University and True Frame Productions,” she added.

The project will be showcased in a variety of venues over eight months:

It will premiere at the Images Festival in Toronto (April 18), in celebration of the��50th anniversary of the invention of IMAX. This festival showcases artistic excellence in contemporary moving image culture.
Next, it will show at the Toronto Biennial of Art, Sept. 21 to Dec. 21, which seeks to connect the city’s communities around art and culture. Here, the films will play at the Cinesphere.
��After the Biennial, the XL Outer Worlds program will tour the first IMAX cinemas across Canada in Victoria, Sudbury, Edmonton and Montreal.

A Canada Research Chair in Art, Digital Media and Globalization (2003-13), Marchessault is the ideal academic to bring this ambitious show together. She was the co-founder of Future Cinema Lab and the inaugural director of Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts & Technology Research at 91��ɫ. In 2012, she was awarded a prestigious Trudeau Fellowship to pursue her curatorial and public art research around the problem of sustainable development. She has (co)curated numerous large-scale public art exhibitions in Toronto and beyond, including Museum for the End of the World (2012) and Land|Slide, Possible Futures (2013). Land|Slide was named one of the best exhibitions in Canada in 2013 by Canadian Art magazine.

A glimpse at the five high-profile filmmakers

Oliver Husain (left) and a screen capture from Garden of the Legend of the Golden Snail (right)

Oliver Husain will contribute to the XL Outer Worlds project with a film called Garden of the Legend of the Golden Snail, which tells that story of an elderly woman who discovers a beautiful snail that provides food for the family. The animal transforms into a princess who again transforms, this time into a large IMAX theatre. Husain’s compelling projects often start with a fragment of history or a personal encounter. He uses a wide range of cinematic languages, including dance and puppetry, to engage viewers.��

Lisa Jackson (left), Lichen shoot (middle) and a screen capture from Lichen��(right)

Genie Award-winning filmmaker and CBC documentarian Lisa Jackson will contribute a highly original piece called Lichen. Her film will take a penetrating look at this distinctive life form, which can survive in a variety of extreme environments, including outer space, and pose the question: what can we learn from lichen? Jackson’s work often bridges into different genres hitherto confined to separate silos – the documentary, animation, virtual reality and even musicals.

Left to right: Kelly Richardson (credit: Colin Davison) and Richardson’s contribution to exhibition XL Outer Worlds

Representing a new generation of artists working with digital technologies to create hyper-real, highly charged landscapes, Kelly Richardson will contribute to this project with a film that considers “generational amnesia” and the remnants of the distant past – specifically, the centuries-old trees on Vancouver Island. Over three quarters of the old-growth trees on this island have been logged. In XL Outer Worlds, Richardson will be transforming an area of threatened old growth into an imagined future landscape.

Left to right: Michael Snow (credit: Craig Boyko © Art Gallery of Ontario, reproduced with permission), Janine Marchessault chatting with Michael Snow and an image from Snow’s shoot for XL Outer Worlds

Without a doubt, the most seasoned of the filmmakers in XL Outer Worlds is esteemed artist Michael Snow, considered to be one of Canada’s most influential filmmakers. (His most well-known artworks are Walking Woman,��1961, and the Toronto Eaton Centre’s permanent installation Flightstop,1979, depicting Canada geese in flight.) Snow’s films of the 1960 and 1970s were groundbreaking. For XL Outer Worlds, he is considering creating a work that elaborates on the methods he used in his avant-garde 1971 film La Région Centrale, which was built around constant spherical motions.��He hopes to blend some of the original, landscape-based patterns with new ones, inspired by IMAX’s capacity, which reference cityscapes.

Leila Sujir (left) and a screen capture from Forest (right)

Leila Sujir, Chair of the Studio Arts Department in the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University, will be participating in this project with her film titled Forest. Her subject will be the Walbran, an area on Vancouver Island that is scheduled for clear-cut logging by Teal Jones, the largest privately held forest products company on British Columbia’s coast. Over the past decade, Sujir has been experimenting with stereoscopic 3D video, extending the viewer into the space of the moving image.

Potential for an international audience

Looking to the future, Marchessault sees the potential for a global audience for this exciting project. There is already interest in an international tour.��Stay tuned.

Marchessault also won a $2-million partnership grant from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada. This important project seeks to redress the unevenness of Canadian preservation efforts thus far by emphasizing Canada’s most vulnerable moving image heritage – women’s media, Indigenous media arts, films and media from the LGBTQI+ community and archives from Canada’s immigrant communities.

To learn more about the XL Outer Worlds Project, visit the . To learn more about Marchessault, visit her .

To learn more about Research & Innovation at 91��ɫ, follow us at , watch the and see the .

By Megan Mueller, senior manager, research communications, Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, 91��ɫ, muellerm@yorku.ca

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Q&A with Michael Greyeyes on his dance-opera as a vehicle for healing Canada

muellerm — Fri, 02 Mar 2018 10:00:00 +0000

91��ɫ Theatre Prof talks about his deepest examination to date into the trauma of the residential school experience: Bearing, which premiered last spring. He hopes this highly collaborative production will help the nation move forward, together.

Michael Greyeyes, former Director of the Graduate Program in Theatre at 91��ɫ and critically acclaimed actor/director/choreographer, joined forces with playwright Yvette Nolan to produce Bearing, a dance-opera about Canada’s residential school system that débuted at Toronto’s Luminato Festival last spring. While the last such schools closed in the 1990s, the aftermath of this painful social experiment to assimilate Indigenous children into Euro-Canadian culture, resonates to this day in Indigenous communities and across the nation. It is woven into the present-day fabric of our country.

Michael Greyeyes. Credit: Jeremy Mimnaugh

Bearing was a deeply personal endeavour as both Greyeyes and Nolan’s parents attended residential schools. To create the work, Greyeyes, a Plains Cree, and Nolan, an Algonquin, collaborated with librettist Spy Denommé-Welch, who is Anishnaabe.

In this Q&A, Greyeyes sits down with Brainstorm to talk about the goals and impact of Bearing, what it meant to him personally and the supportive environment at 91��ɫ.

Q: What was the impetus or the driving force behind Bearing?
A: My co-creator and co-director, Yvette Nolan, and I, as Indigenous people, have been dealing with the aftermath of Indian residential schools pretty much our entire lives. Indigenous families are affected by this piece of history in countless ways. It’s akin to someone who has been displaced, like a family from a war-torn country. It’s so significant that it affects your life constantly, even if the war’s over, you’ve moved to another country or your country has rebuilt. Things impact you, they haunt you still.

As artists, we’ve been making work that is marked by this history. Bearing is our deepest examination of that fallout.

Yvette Nolan. Credit: Keesic Douglas

Q: What is the story of Bearing?

A: Bearing revolves around a family�� ̶ ��a metaphor for a community or a nation. We looked at the family because residential schools broke apart families. At the heart of our drama is a family impacted and torn apart by residential schools.

Over the course of the three acts, we are introduced to this family, they interact with the Canadians around them and, in the end, the family is brought together again. So, the journey for the audience charts the progression of the Indigenous family, how they were separated by this history, by circumstance, by their trauma and, ultimately, how they find their way back to each other.

Q: The final act speaks to a deeper understanding, to healing, to what it means to bear some of the weight of this history. How did you accomplish this?

A: When we look at the body of work that’s out there – and it’s a growing body of work since many people are addressing residential schools in literature, performance and visual art – what I’ve seen is an historical approach, primarily. Indigenous artists are required, quite unfortunately, to educate Canadians around this history.

“History is not gone, forgotten, over. History plays out into our present; it is part of our current experience, our everyday lives.” – Michael Greyeyes

We wanted to present something quite different. This is what I suggested to my collaborators: Let’s look at what residential schools means today, in this moment, on this street. That’s where the drama lives. We did this very purposefully to make apparent, for Canadian audiences, a truth that Indigenous people have been living with for a long time: History is not gone, forgotten, over. History plays out into our present; it is part of our current experience, our everyday lives.

That’s how Bearing is remarkably different compared to other works. It’s about now, about how people survive trauma, how we live with each other, how we collectively live with that trauma.

The premise of the work is this: Unless we, as a larger Canadian community, acknowledge and accept that history, accept our complicity in those events and how this affects all of us – not just Indigenous people – then there really is no chance the nation can move forward as a whole.

Q: Bearing premiered at Luminato. What did it mean to you as an Indigenous person and an actor/director/choreographer to unveil this work to the world?

A: It was a very proud moment for me as the Artistic Director of Signal. Bearing was our most ambitious project. I was particularly proud of the quality of the work.

When Bearing was being created, I was also working on the AMC television series “Fear the Walking Dead,” filming in Mexico. So Yvette, Nancy Greyeyes, my wife and co-choreographer, and Brittany Ryan, our general manager, led the final weeks of Bearing rehearsals.

The strength of that kind of collaboration really came forward. I feel that Bearing is our finest work. It was a collective effort. This represents Indigenous ways of working, of power sharing, and how we communicate and work together.

“Unless we, as a larger Canadian community, acknowledge and accept that history, accept our complicity in those events and how this affects all of us – not just Indigenous people – then there really is no chance the nation can move forward as a whole.” – Michael Greyeyes

Q: What kind of feedback have you received?

A: The feedback was tremendously gratifying. People were deeply moved by the work and struck by its great beauty. With live music, it was a very powerful kind of document. Live theatre affects people in ways that film can never hope to.

I think the experience from audiences was incredibly positive. They walked away from it saying that it was a profound experience. That makes me, as one of the collaborators, deeply proud.

Scene from Bearing. Credit: Dahlia Katz

Q: How has 91��ɫ’s Theatre Program, in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD), supported your work?

A: I’ve always felt a great deal of support from my colleagues at 91��ɫ. I’m always impressed by the generosity of the department and my colleagues.

As a long-time 91��ɫ faculty, I recognize the quality of the graduates that we produce. I’m always seeking an opportunity to work with 91��ɫ students and colleagues. For example, Aria Evans, one of our main performers, is a 91��ɫ grad, as is Ervin Chow. ��Our brilliant costume designer, Joanna Yu is a graduate of the theatre department, as was our award-winning lighting designer, Michelle Ramsay. The chance to work with very talented professional artists from 91��ɫ is truly gratifying.

A related article, “,” was published by AMPD (June 2017). For more information about Greyeyes, visit his . To learn more about Signal Theatre, visit the

To learn more about Research & Innovation at 91��ɫ, follow us at , watch the and see the .

By Megan Mueller, manager, research communications, Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, 91��ɫ, muellerm@yorku.ca

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91��ɫ scholar curates high-profile Liz Magor exhibition in Montreal

muellerm — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 10:00:00 +0000

Dan Adler

Teaming up with the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Professor Dan Adler assembles a major show of an artist who is viewed as the most influential sculptor of the last 30 years.

Last year, 91��ɫ Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art Dan Adler, with Lesley Johnstone, curator and head of exhibitions and education at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC), co-curated a ground-breaking exhibition at on Canadian artist Liz Magor, one of Canada’s most important and influential living sculptors. The show, Habitude, ran from June 22 to September 5, 2016, and featured 75 pieces created from 1975 to 2016. It was the largest exhibition of this artist’s work to date.

Lesley Johnstone. Photo by: Nat Gorry

The show, as well as the accompanying book − edited by Adler, Johnstone and others, offers a thoughtful and comprehensive exploration of Magor’s sculpture and installation work, produced over four decades, underscoring the tremendous range of her work.

Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba (1948), Liz Magor is a prolific sculptor who has influenced many generations of artists, having taught at Emily Carr University of Art and Design for years. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Exhibition is highly provocative, collaborative

Liz Magor. Image courtesy of Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver. Photo: SITE Photography and Kelly Lycan

Habitude is special in many ways, not only in sheer scale. First, it is highly collaborative. Both the exhibition and book represent an international joint venture co-organized by Adler and Johnstone, alongside European peers at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich and the Kunstverein in Hamburg – destinations to which the exhibition will travel in 2017.

In fact, this is the first major exhibition of Magor’s work to hit European shores. “One of my roles as a curator, educator, scholar and critic is to bring Magor’s practice to the larger world,” Adler says.

“One of my roles as a curator, educator, scholar and critic is to bring Magor’s practice to the larger world.” – Dan Adler

Secondly, Habitude was curated in an original and thought-provoking��way. It’s not a conventional, chronological retrospective that moves from early to middle to later work. Instead, the exhibition mixes and matches work��from various time periods in Magor’s lengthy career.

“Wanting to do something different, we have really provocative mixtures of different kinds of work,” Adler explains. “Often, I think the visitor to the exhibition is struck by the fact that this is all by the same artist because the subject matter and the materials shift so dramatically,” he adds.

“How can we value material reality?”

As a result of this kind of inspired curatorship, Habitude offers a new and evocative perspective on Magor’s work.

“I’m a treasure hunter of trash, really…” the artist writes about one piece in the Habitude show, although this idea applies to much of her work. In her sculpture, she often repurposes items that were destined for the trash − damaged clothing, blankets and mittens beyond repair, cardboard boxes that have been reused one too many times.

But in reassembling these unwanted and unvalued items with conceptual and procedural rigour, Magor imbues new value in the resulting deeply introspective pieces that speak to both inner and shared history.

“91��ɫ fosters scholarship, particularly in the visual arts.”
– Dan Adler

Adler believes that Magor makes us think of all kinds of objects with reference to how they operate in society. “She wants us to look that these objects in ways that are analogous to the predicaments of people, or how they might struggle with desires, with compulsive and addictive behaviours and with the ideas of value, relevance and worth,” he suggests. The artist effectively asks, “How can we value material reality?”

To Adler, the exhibition is a strong argument for the importance of art that has a material presence in the world. “Magor’s work is more important than ever because the world we live in, with its focus on the online or virtual experience, is increasingly immaterial,” he explains.

Magor creates deeply introspective pieces

With pieces in the show titled Violator and Still Alive, the exhibition explores ideas of memory, history, shelter and survival. The visual language that this artist speaks is multi-layered and rich in narrative, easily shifting from social identity to psychological commentary.

Liz Magor, Being This, 2012. Installation view, Liz Magor: “Habitude”, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, 2016. Photo: Richard-Max Tremblay. Images courtesy of Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver. Photo: SITE Photography

Liz Magor, Being This, 2012 (detail). Image courtesy of Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver. Photo: SITE Photography.

When discussing Being This, 2012, which features thrift-store garments tucked into 22 cubbyhole-like boxes evenly distributed across the gallery’s broad white wall, the artist describes the gaudy and overly decorated clothes as “anxious.”

In fact, she created this piece to neutralize the showy voices of these discarded items. “That drive to appear, and appear as significant, again it’s a never-ending drive. It causes a lot of pain or anxiety; it’s difficult to accomplish it,” she writes in the accompanying text.

Book features many voices, multilayered content

Liz Magor, Edited by Dan Adler, Lesley Johnstone, Heike Munder and Bettina Steinbrügge. Published by the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal in 2016

The 2016 book – the largest publication on this artist – was highly collaborative. In consultation with Lesley Johnstone, Liz Magor and peers at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst and the Kunstverein, Adler decided to offer a mixture of scholarly essays as well as the perspectives of artists.

“We invited artists to write a short text about one particular work that they felt is important,” he explains. “We liked the idea of having different voices. That kind of multilayered content was really important to us,” he adds.

Magor was artist-in-residence at 91��ɫ

As this show circulates in Zurich and Hamburg, Adler emphasizes, once more, the value of mobilizing and giving visual arts practices a wider audience – traits fostered at 91��ɫ’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design. “This exhibition is a perfect example of that,” he says. “91��ɫ fosters scholarship, particularly in the visual arts.”

Interestingly, Magor was an artist-in-residence in 91��ɫ’s sculpture studio about 15 years ago, during which time her work was featured in several exhibitions at the Art Gallery of 91��ɫ (AGYU).

Liz Magor, Keep, 2000. Photo courtesy: YFile.

While at 91��ɫ, Magor produced Keep, 2000, commissioned by AGYU. It is now part of the permanent collection on campus, installed in the courtyard of Central Square.

To read about Habitude, visit�� and . To find the Liz Magor book, visit To read more about Dan Adler, visit��/dadler/.

By Megan Mueller, manager, research communications, Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, 91��ɫ, muellerm@yorku.ca

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